Anne Messel was born 8 February 1902, at 27, Gloucester Terrace, Paddington, London, England,[2] the second child and only daughter of Leonard Charles Rudolph Messel (1872-1953), OBE, TD, a stockbroker and Lieutenant Colonel of the Royal East Kent Regiment,[3] and Maud Messel, daughter of Edward Linley Sambourne.[2][4][5] The Messel family was of German-Jewish background; Leonard Messel's father, Ludwig, who had established a successful stockbroking business, had purchased the Nymans estate in West Sussex in the late nineteenth century.[6][7] Messel was the sister of Linley Messel (1899–1971) and the stage set designer Oliver Messel (1904–1978). She was raised in Sussex, close to her paternal grandparents, who lived at Nymans, and was educated at home. Needlework and gardening were among her early interests. The presence of illustrations in surviving family letters and diaries reveals that she also had some artistic talent.[8]
At a Guy Fawkes night party in 1957, inspired by her house at 18 Stafford Terrace and the reaction of its 32 visitors, Anne, Countess of Rosse proposed founding a Victorian Society to encourage the preservation and appreciation of what was then unfashionable art and architecture. A handful of enthusiasts, including Sir John Betjeman and Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, agreed to support the cause. The Victorian Society was founded at 18 Stafford Terrace in February 1958 with the aim of preserving Victorian and Edwardian architecture and encouraging research into the art and history of the period.[9][10]
Personal life
She married Ronald Armstrong-Jones on 22 July 1925 and they were divorced in early 1935. They had two children:
Anne married Michael Parsons, 6th Earl of Rosse, on 19 September 1935. Rosse had extensive estates in Ireland and was nicknamed "The Adonis of the Peerage".[8]
In 1947, the house at Nymans was badly damaged by fire, and the countess travelled to Staplefield to help. Her parents vacated the house and bought Holmsted Manor nearby as their new home. The earl and countess continued to use the house, following repairs, and it passed to the National Trust on her father's death in 1953. After the Earl's death in 1979, the countess returned to live at Nymans and retained some responsibility for the appearance of the gardens.[8]
^British Gardens in Time: The Greatest Garden Makers from Capability Brown to Christopher Lloyd, Katie Campbell, Quarto Publishing Group U.S.A., 2014, p. 12
^Who's Who, 110th edition, A. & C. Black, 1958, p. 2071
^Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 3, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 3405
De La Haye, Amy; Taylor, Lou; Thompson, Eleanor (2005). A Family of Fashion: The Messels: Six Generations of Dress. Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd. ISBN0856676101.
Robbins, Daniel; Suleman, Reena; Hunter, Pamela (2003). Linley Sambourne House: 18 Stafford Terrace, Kensington. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. ISBN0-902242-20-2.
